


What Goes Around

by ThatwasJustaDream



Series: Thank you fics for the "Share your best of 2013" post on LJ's 1_million_words comm [15]
Category: Lost
Genre: Community: 1_million_words, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 21:07:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life gets so much better for James Ford after they're rescued. With one exception: A weakness he can't shed, and he's tried....</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Alley

It stunned James how easy it was to lose most of “Sawyer” after he made it home, to discard him like a friend you’ll always remember but don’t want to be around anymore. Running cons for starters: He never did again the rest of his life, even though it meant some lean months bartending until he landed a job that he could live well on.

And Kate: Soon after they slipped away from the Ajira plane in Guam she called him to say she’d met someone. The two of them were in Iowa, waiting out the statue of limitations. She felt pretty good about their odds. He hung up the phone, and that was the last he talked with her forever and ever. Amen.

On the plus side, his fears of commitment and loss somehow fell away, too. He was on the phone with Cassidy days after their flight to freedom. The two of them said ‘I do’ in front of a judge before fall was up. 

What he couldn’t leave behind from that time, ever, surprised him not at all. It was why he was standing in an alley behind a bar now with a young Air Force jet jockey’s cock in his hand, his palm and fingers sweetly sticky as he jacked him to the brink and then kept him right there over and over and over. He had him groaning and begging with his head against a wall as they rocked, hips bumping, James’ eyes burning holes through him.

James was throbbing, too, thank you very much. But he had no interest in touching himself or being touched. Tonight was all about watching those hazel eyes shoot open wide and drift back away from him, going glassy. About the low, throaty moans so close to exactly, perfectly right. About hearing, ‘Please, Sawyer, next time…don’t stop, _fuck_ …make me come….”

It wasn’t cheating in his mind. He’d never touched another woman after marrying Cassidy and didn’t seek out men either. He only found himself in a situation like this when he ran into a guy of this precise type: Too smart, too serious, tall and built, black hair. 

This one was so ‘on,’ so _him_ that James had to shove his tongue firmly under his own lower lip to keep from reaching in and kissing him. He knew if he did, the illusion would evaporate and Jack would be newly dead, more lost to him than he’d been the two decades since he and Kate and the four others had escaped.

His latest crush was close to coming again; thigh muscles tightening, the hands digging into James’ ass shaking. James could smell a sweet hint on his breath of the bourbon the guy’d been drinking before they’d slipped out back, and it only added to the temptation to lock tongues. He dug into him with all five fingers and tugged, sent him over the edge before he did anything that …stupid.

He figured he could live on this night for a while.

~~~

James woke up the next morning hung over and less relieved than ever. He came hard in his own hand remembering it. Then it hit him: This guy? He could be a problem.

It wasn’t that he looked _exactly_ like him. He was thinner, his features finer and his hair longer with waves and some auburn running through it. 

But he was exactly the correct height, and dark - with stubble right on schedule by mid-afternoon. And there was the vibe, that was the big draw; the guy was always at the bar with other pilots from the base, the calm, quiet one in the group, a little detached, observing his friends with a patient and distracted grin whenever they got loud and idiotic. He never did. He always watched himself, kept the group in check. When the kids started fighting, he was the one to step in and fix things.

James had been watching him for weeks when he stared a little too long one night and they locked eyes. Damn if it didn’t feel like getting hit by a bus. Then yesterday Cassidy had headed to her mom’s for a couple of days and James headed for the bar and made the side trip out into the alley.

He got in the shower and told himself the bar was off limits from now on. They’d have to find another place to go after a movie, for happy hour. They were only semi-regulars, anyway.

Cass called at lunchtime to say her mom was under the weather. Nothing serious, but she wanted to stay a few more days, keep an eye on her. Would he be okay?

~*~

James picked a seat at the far side of the bar, under the TV that was currently blaring out a football game. Happily, Jet Jockey walked in when he was only halfway into his first drink, before his brain had a chance to get too fuzzy. He didn’t want any excuses, nothing to blame.

“I swear to God I’m not stalking you.”

Those were the first words the kid said to James once the bartender walked away and they'd exchanged names. It made him smile, looking down, shrugging slightly.

“Hey, it’s all right. Why do you think I’m here, anyway? You ever see me here without my wife? Not to mention two nights in a row?” 

James looked up and let his smile deepen, holding the guy’s gaze.

“Oh, good,” Only two words, but they came out shaky and so relieved. 

And then Jet Jockey looked embarrassed, like his voice had said more than he’d intended. 

“I don’t do this. I mean I hadn’t ever done this before… yesterday. Told myself I wasn’t coming here again.”

“What a coincidence. Told myself the same thing. Why did you?”

“’Cause I want to know… want to try…. I want…. _shit_ ….”

“It’s okay,” James murmured, “I get it. So.. why not turn to one of your buddies?”

“I work where I live and live where I work. It’s not the best place for….experimenting.” 

He’d been fidgeting with his glass, but he stopped, looking back up at James. 

“I see how you look at me, like you want to put me over one of these tables and fuck my brains out. I know it’ll be… intense. And that you’re not a creeper. You won’t give me grief after.”

“Not unless you want me to,” James pitched his voice low. “And you say please real nice.”

It got a little grin out of him, but James didn’t miss how he jumped slightly back in his seat, his fingers flying away from his glass, an intake of breath that said he’d felt the words and the way James had oozed them everywhere in his body.

“Why me, Sawyer? I see how you look at your wife. You’re not here for the hell of it.”

“Does it matter?”

James saw him nod that it did, the smile gone, his expression patient, penetrating and it made him relent and answer.

“First, it’s… that look on your face right now. You’ve got the expression about you of someone I lost. Guessing you’d probably feel like him if I held you. Hell, you probably taste like him, too.”

“Jeez….” James heard the tension in his voice, and felt it ramping up for him, too. “Can we go somewhere?”

“Soon. Two more things, though. How old are you?”

“Old enough to drink in a bar.” His partner in crime clearly hoped to leave it at that, but saw James shake his head like ‘not good enough.’ “I’m twenty six.”

“Great. Thank you. It’s just… I like to be able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning, that’s all.”

“You didn’t ask me my age yesterday.”

“I didn’t show you my best manners at all yesterday and I’m sorry about that. I don’t normally fuck around in back alleys, either. That was not cool. But I’d had a couple of drinks while I was waiting for you. It affected my judgment.”

“I know what you mean. I did the same thing before I drove over here, too. Nerves,” Jet Jockey smiled shyly again and James wondered if it was going to hurt every damn time he did that.

“What’s your name?”

“Sam. Well, Samuel, but everyone calls me Sam.”

“That your real name?”

“Is your real name Sawyer?”

James smiled and tipped his drink toward him in salute.

“Well played. Listen, I’d like to be able to keep coming here after tonight so here’s what we’re gonna do. You finish what’s in front of you and go. Keep it light, say thanks to the bartender. I’ll be ten minutes behind you. There’s a nice motel, a family place about two miles north on the left. Wait in your car and let me get the room, okay? I pay ‘em well and they know I’ll never cause them trouble so I don’t get any hassle. Good?”

“Sounds perfect.”

“Got anywhere else you need to be tonight?” 

James saw a hint of concern cross Sam’s forehead as he sipped his drink.

“No, why?”

“’Cause you wanna learn and I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited about teaching someone. So this might take some time.”

“F _uuu_ uck,” Sam breathed it. 

Sawyer let himself enjoy that wave of anticipation, too. The deal was done so…why not?

~tbc~


	2. Trouble

“Slow down,” James pushed the kid back a step, making it clear with his tone that it was an order, not a request.

The boy had been all over him the moment the motel room door shut. His eyes were a little wild, had that ‘I made up my mind so I’m diving in head first, rocks what rocks?’ kind of look and yeah, that was unsettlingly familiar, too. “I wasn’t kidding. We aren’t rushing this.”

He dropped his jacket on a chair and dug into the pocket, brought a small paper bag full of supplies over to the nightstand, then turned to see Sam watching him.

“I meant to say there are some things I’m… not sure about.” Sam was undoing the buttons of his own shirt as he talked, though, pulling it over his head and it made James smile the way he was throttling back with his words and pushing forward with his actions. 

“It’s all good. Best to be prepared; you might find you’re up for more than you think.”

“Yeah,” Sam looked away, and James could tell he was remembering the alley and how he’d never expected to be there, either. 

“Come on… talk to me…” James got a hand around his left arm and drew him in the last couple of steps between them.

“Talk?”

“Uh huh….” 

He dug his fingers lightly into Sam’s hair on both sides of his head and tilted it to one side, then ran his open mouth from slowly from a shoulder to an ear, mouthing and biting softly all the way up. He’d hoped to distract him, put him off guard a bit and he felt a thrill at how well it worked: He heard him moan his first soft, short moan, felt it against his lips.

“That’s it, pretty. Relax, and tell me where you want to start?” 

“Never had anyone’s dick in my hand,” Sam’s voice got practical again, if a little shaky, his fingers back at James, at the button and the zip on his pants. “I wanna make you hard. Wanna jack you off like you did me … watch you feeling it. I…”

James reached in, bit at an earlobe when Sam’s voice trailed off; a nip of encouragement.

“That’s fine,” he ridded himself of his pants and boxers, nodding for Sam to do the same. “Very fine. Ask for anything you want, okay? Don’t even think about it, just say it. Kinda hotter when someone blurts it out like that, you know?”

He’d pulled open the paper bag and doled them each out a drop or three of lube.

“Bought it… so we might as well make this nice and slick….”

He’d taken Sam’s cock in hand first, chuckling at how it took a second to get the favor retuned and the long, surprised ‘ohhhh’ out of the boy as they started working each other. Now they were forehead-to-forehead, eyes down, breath speeding up as they watched each other tugging, switching up the pace, feet shifting and fingers digging and thumbs swiping and…..

“You got it babe, that’s good. Don’t worry about getting too rough, I’ll tell you. Yeah, fuck, like that, awwww… _fuck_! You are gonna make me lose my mind.”

The talking stopped as James started gasping, fighting back a groan. Sam reacted to that, to every sound he made, stroking him faster, harder until James was the one shaking, holding on to the boy’s hips to stay on his feet, letting him pump them both in his one, slick hand.

He closed his eyes and ran his hands over the kid’s ass, up his back. The motel had the heat cranked up; they were both sweating lightly now, and for a few blissful seconds he was there; the day he and Jack went from fighting to fucking and fighting. They were in the jungle, Jack’s back against a tree, surrounded by what he had come to think of as 'island funk;' hot air so heavy you could almost see it, the humid smell of mud and wet leaves from the latest round of rain. 

Now it wasn’t the kid anymore, it was Jack’s mouth against his ear, alternately swearing into it and huffing wordless, nervous, thrilled sounds, Jack’s skin shivering under his fingertips, Jack’s cock hard against his and they were both close, so close….

“Shiiiit, boy…. gonna make me come this way if you don’t stop. You can if you want. I’ll come in your hand. I’ll come any way you want, just … _fuck_ , tell me what you want?”

Sam skipped words, just pulled away and went to the bed, tugging the top sheet down and getting in, on his back, brown eyes shot almost fully black. His shirt was still on but wide open and he looked so _on_ , so him- the big arms straining against the fabric, the tight, young abs, long, strong legs, his cock high and hard and red from the gentle abuse with their hands. 

Sawyer lost his shirt and went to him, dropped in over him and started rocking. They came that way -- grappling, a sweet wrestling match; fingers leaving small bruises, dicks sliding and skin slapping and the sound Sam made when he came, well you’d have to be totally tone deaf not to hear it; that it was better than he’d imagined, better than anything he’d ever had before.

Just like Jack had sounded that day.

~*~

“I’m headed east in six months,” Sam said. “They’re sending me to a base in Japan for my next assignment.”

They were lying in bed, taking a few minutes to recover before round two and it had been quiet for some time – a comfortable silence.

“And you’re telling me this why?” Sawyer heard the attitude in his own voice.

“’Cause what I’m about to say … I don’t want you to think I was lying about not being a problem for you but… uh, I would like it if we could see each other some more. Like every other week, maybe? ‘Cause I’m not gonna be up for full on fucking tonight but I’d like to … with you. Eventually.”

“Look, kid, that’s so not a smart idea for me. No insult but... I’m married and you know that. And I may not be the bastard I used to be but... I’m not in this to be your sex therapist either."

“I’m not asking for charity, here, Sawyer,” Now Sam’s voice had its own little edge, and James couldn’t help grudgingly thinking ‘good for you’ at the sound of it. “This way, you get about a dozen more rounds with …him. Whoever this long lost love of yours is. In exchange, I get experience. I leave town fully ready for whatever’s next in my life, not fumbling with my first real boyfriend.”

“I need to think on it,” James said, but they both knew the answer would be yes.

“Change of subject,” Sam knelt up, tossed pillows against the headboard and nodded for James to sit against them. “How about you give me my first taste of cock?”

Fuck, yeah… that one was a no brainer.

~*~

James barely remembered his short drive home, he was physically loose and relieved but also so stuck in his own head. In memories.

He was damn glad Cassidy was out of town, that he wouldn’t have to look her in the eyes.

“Son of a bitch….” He whispered it in his driveway, hand still on the keys in the ignition as the car shut off.

Yeah, this one was trouble. Because he was already thinking about next time. And because for the first time – it felt like cheating.


	3. Tell Me....

“C’mon… _over_ for me, now…”

James has barely pulled his mouth off the boy; slaps that sweet, tight ass and directs him onto his belly, spreads those cheeks open and leans in to kiss, suckle and lick his hole wet and open and ready and…

“ _Fuck!_ So good…” 

He’s balls deep in him, then, and Sam is incoherent – half up on his knees in a frog position, so very lost in sensation that he’s half a world away.

The former shy baby is gone forever, is fucking him back hard, and James feels a wave of something he doesn’t get very often – pride, and a pleasure that’s open and happy and …. so good.

However this turns out? He is done for back alleys and strangers. Forever.

~*~

“Is his name Jack?”

Sam’s standing with his back to the shower wall with his arms around James, stroking hips, his ass, thumbs kneading lazily when he asks it. 

“How the hell’d you…”

“You said it. Last week, when …. uh…. you lost it. You called me Jack.”

“Yeah?”

“You can tell me more about him.”

“Sure, I can. How about no goddamned way?”

“Okay. Fine.” Sam lets a palm stray, sliding to cup James’ balls as he leans in, kisses his shoulder, his neck.

He’d been pissed the first time the kid jumped in the shower with him uninvited, but Sam only laughed when told it was ‘scope creep.’

“But… I would think….” Sam presses ahead, now between kisses, and James is so unused to anyone daring to push him past a certain point he can’t even respond. “….that maybe it would help. To talk to someone?”

“If I wanted a goddamned shrink I would have one.”

Sam shuts up, and at least for once he _isn’t_ like _him_. Jack would have leaned back and told him what to do with his deflecting. Or gotten pissed and then out of the shower. Sam does neither, and James sighs.

“His name ‘isn’t’ Jack. It ‘was’ Jack. He died.”

“Ah,” Sam says. “I thought so.”

He doesn’t say ‘I’m sorry’ or anything else, though. He seems to get that he’s gone as far as he should for now.

~*~

The lights are always off when he pulls up to their house this late, but tonight they’re on upstairs and down. Blazing like an electric gauntlet.

“Oh hell. Here we go…” James gets out of the car slowly. “Is this my night or what?”

He steals a look beyond the kitchen once he’s in, as he’s tossing his keys on the counter, and there’s Cassidy stretched out on the sofa with iPad in hand.

“Honey, I’m home.” 

She doesn’t rise to the bait, stays quiet as he grabs a beer and joins her. And even then, she just looks up at him for what feels like thirty seconds.

“You leaving me for that doppelganger?” 

Yup. She has likely followed him one or twice. Has seen Sam, apparently.

“No. You leaving _me_?”

“I won’t if you call it off.”

They always could get right to the point. Probably why they’d made it so far.

He’s standing over her where she is stretched out on their L-shaped sofa and she’s in one of those old-school baby doll nighties he likes best. Short. Sheer green silk. Looks damn good in it still, and he’d be turned on if he had anything left in the tank but he so doesn’t.

“He’s out of here in under two months, Cass. Moving halfway around the world. When he goes…”

“Not before then?”

“No.”

“You would think…” there’s a little more venom in her voice. “When they keep turning out _not_ to be him and _not_ to be him and….”

“This one damn near is. I swear, it’s…not just the physical part. It’s … .”

He doesn’t say ‘everything,’ but his eyes must be showing what he’s feeling because she folds up on the couch enough to give him room to sit by her feet. 

“If he had survived that second time and come home…” she asks. “Would you have ever looked me up? Or would you have stayed with them? Bouncing between each other’s houses, the three of you?”

“How the hell can I answer that? It’s been too long.”

That gets a dark laugh out of her and he has to admit it’s a lame-assed lie. It was twenty years ago and it was also last week. It’ll always be last week. 

“It never was about her, was it?” Cassidy says, and the hurt but amused tone in her voice allows him to nod in agreement.

She’s better with that being the fact – even though Kate used to be her friend. Or maybe _because_ Kate used to be her friend. Who knew, with women?

“If I could have put this down any sooner… I would have. I’ve always given you the best I had in me. I swear.”

“I know,” she says. “That’s why I’m not gone.”

~*~

He considers it, the next few days; calling everything off early. But then he’s back at the motel and Sam’s in the middle of the room waiting for him, looking shy like he’s got something to say.

James goes to meet him and catches the jump, the barely audible gasp Sam gives when he realizes he’s about to get kissed. 

Not kissed, devoured. 

James has wanted this so long, he’s braced for the disappointment but hell if it’s not perfect - the strong jaw, the same degree of clench in it, the way Sam gives in a few seconds later; eyes shut and hands reaching for James hair, for the back of his neck. When he starts kissing back – muscular, with long, slow strokes and deep sucks, so fucking _male_ , and so _him_ , it makes James shiver. 

Illusion not shattered. Only reinforced.

“I want to top,” Sam sighs it into his ear when he breaks away. “Can I fuck you, Sawyer? Please?”

“It’s James.”

“I’m still Sam,” he says between kisses. Of course he didn’t lie. He didn’t need to. “Can I fuck you, James? Want it so bad. Wanted it for weeks, now.”

~*~ 

Cassidy insisted that from here in, he stay away the nights he’s with him. 

James thought he’d be spending this one alone 'cause the kid does have friends and a life - but instead he has Sam wrapped around him at chest level. The arm over him is heavy, the cheek against his skin rough with stubble and loose with sleep, deeply out.

He closes his eyes; the traffic beyond the hotel room window morphs into ocean waves. 

The random voices and stray laughter in the parking lot become conversations around campfires as he sinks into sleep.


	4. The Odds....

Neither one of them ends it, but it does end - and well before Sam leaves town.

Later, James thinks maybe it was that smarmy reverse-Jesus who was behind the whole affair; the one in white who made everyone else suffer for his sins. Or maybe it was his bitter brother with the short-man complex who walked around wearing Locke’s coldest, emptiest face.

They’re supposed to be dead, but maybe demi-gods don’t really ever die.

~*~

“I can’t come here next week.”

They’re in bed when Sam says it. 

James had drifted off. He lifts his head and gives him the death stare. 

“Sorry, but I really can’t. My mom and step-dad are coming to visit.”

“I leave my _wife_ at home … but you can’t let _ma_ and _pa_ entertain themselves for a couple damn hours? Give ‘em some cash, point ‘em at Olive Garden and get your ass over here.”

“You don’t understand,” Sam’s visibly trying not to smile at James’ tone, and it’s disarming, how comfortable the guy is with him that his bark is nothing to him any more. “This isn’t like your average family visit. My mom never leaves home. As in, not once in my whole life has she crossed the Iowa state line.”

“Maybe she’s in the witness protection program,” James tries to steer it somewhere lighter as he gets up and heads for the shower, but something’s tingling in his brain, making it hard to think straight. 

Could be she’s a grifter he wants to say. A con. He’s never told Sam about all that. It’s not what you want to send someone away with, to have them remember in years to come.

“No, nothing so exciting. She’s a simple, pretty country school teacher,” Sam waits for him to get the water running, the temp right, and joins him. “She has zero interest in seeing the world and she’s not ashamed to say so.”

“That seems pretty unfair. Hell, by the time I was your age I’d seen half the country. Drove most of it myself.”

“You were trouble when you were my age. Am I right?”

“You’d make money on that bet.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” Sam said eventually. “My step-dad would take me to see his parents in Minnesota. We’d go ice fishing. Then, when they retired he flew me to see them in Florida every year. I even went to Australia once with my Aunt Claire.”

It was like being hit by lightning – Iowa and Australia connecting in his brain, a blast of ‘no’ so strong James couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. When he surfaced, stumbling, Sam’s hands were going out to brace him and the kid looked terrified.

“James what’s wrong?”

He must look like he's having a stroke. 

He pushed him slightly, afraid to hurt him, worried he maybe couldn’t contain his fury long enough to get clear of him. Then he was in the bedroom and flinging shit; the desk chair, the motel guidebooks and assorted crap on top of the desk. When he ran out of things to throw he punched a wall and never felt it.

Sam was out of the shower and pulling on his briefs. He didn’t try to stop him until then, until James was yanking a lamp out of the socket and winding up to fling it, too.

“Woah, hey… son of a … you’re gonna hurt yourself…” Sam got him to the bed, sat him down, left again and came back with a wet washcloth.

James surfaced, feeling very naked, to the sight of Sam holding his hand and pressing the cloth to his knuckles. The bubble of fury rose again at the sight of those hazel brown eyes on him, until it felt like it might strangle him.

“Stop,” he choked out and took the cloth. 

“I know you’re not crazy,” Sam sounded scared, and it cut through some of the anger - enough that James could contain himself. “So tell me…what the hell?”

“I swear it’s alive – that damn place is… _alive_ and it’s _fucking_ with me. It knows what I lost, and it knows I should have saved him, tossed him over my shoulder and made him jump off that cliff with us….”

“You’re still not… making any….sense.”

“We were in Kiribati in four hours flat. Coulda gotten him help. Could have let Desmond and his magic powers put the place to right.” James tugged him back down to sitting when Sam reached for the motel phone. “Wait, no. Give… give me a second.”

Sam looked like he sensed his own life had just taken a turn but he couldn’t understand where or why.

“You _lied_ to me,” James shouted it and watched him flinch. “You’re not twenty-six, you’re… _Jesus_ , you’re barely twenty. Twenty and what, four months?”

“How the hell would you know that I’m….”

“Big for your age. Like him. Quiet, too. Makes you seem older.”

“Do you know my Aunt Claire? Is that it? Did you… know them when they all lived in Australia?”

“That what Kate told you? That she lived in Australia? Met your daddy through your aunt?”

“Yeah, exactly. She taught school there and Claire ...”

“How’d she say your daddy died?”

“They were in a car crash on a trip to see Uluru. It was when she was pregnant with me. Claire… she never got along with her family except for my dad, so she came to Iowa with my mom and…”

“Sorry to break it to you, Sammy, but Kate…she plays very fast and loose with the truth when it suits her. She met him the same week she met me and we sure as hell weren’t in Sydney.”

“You do know my mom? And Claire? And you knew my…. oh…. _holy_ ….” 

James watched it all land and connect, and it told him what he felt for the kid because it really sucked; the horror on Sam’s face, how he looked … sickened. 

That’s not how you want to send someone away, either.

“If you didn’t meet them in Australia… where were you?”

James started laughing – mirthless laughter that hurt. Sam slumped; appeared to be accepting that he wouldn’t get all the answers he wanted today. 

“They never talk about him,” the boy said it softly, like he was showing James a wound he hadn’t shared much before. “I’ve tried to get mom to talk about my dad but…she won’t. Even my aunt; she tries, but then she shakes her head and tells me it’s a time she can’t really stand to think about. Can you tell me? About him? What he was like? What he….”

The laughter shifted to tears and James gave in to them, burying himself in the shoulder and the arms being offered to him. 

He was shaking so hard, he could barely hear Jack’s son whispering ‘it’s okay, it’s all right…I’m sorry’ over and over, like a mantra in his ear.

~*~

“You didn’t sleep with my aunt, too, did you?” Sam asked from across the diner booth three days later, grinning at the ‘screw you’ look it earned him. “Just checking. That would’ve made the whole family. Too soon to joke?”

“Way too damn soon. But no, for your information, I did not.” James drawled it. “She was smarter than either of ‘em.”

Sam had called him a dozen times before he’d given in and come here. They’d talked about Jack and James hadn’t held back – told him the good and the bad and the bullheaded about him, explained that while some people claimed to have a love/hate relationship he and Jack had actually perfected the form. James had talked about how he couldn't let it go, losing him, and the guilt he didn't even fully know he was carrying over leaving him to die. The one thing he wouldn't get into in detail was the full back story. Someone else was going to take on that burden of telling the kid - not him. 

“So where was it… the place you said is ‘alive?’” 

“Ask your mom,” James shook his head when Sam started to object. “Tell Kate you’re a man now and you smell a cooked up story when you hear one. Tell her it’s time for the truth. You’d best know anyway; there’s at least an outside chance a huge, curly headed fella and his bug-eyed buddy might show up someday and try to recruit you. If they do… tell ‘em I said to fuck the hell off or they'll have me to deal with.”

“I don’t suppose you’ll explain who you’re referring to?”

“Nope. Just ask her. For the whole truth, every bit of it.”

~*~

The walk to their cars took a while, like maybe they were both stretching it out.

“I have no family here,” Sam leaned against James’ car. “So I won’t be coming back. But I’d like to keep in touch. Call you every so often?”

“I don’t know, babe,” James saw disappointment on his face. “You do and you might cost me a divorce I really don’t want.”

“Are you going to tell your wife about this? That I’m…”

“Hell no. You gonna tell Kate about me?’

“Uh… no damn way.”

Sam made a face and James laughed - could tell he was picturing the outcome of that particular conversation.

“Okay, look,” Sam stood up and closer to him. “I’ll call you in six, eight months. And if you answer, you answer. Good?”

“Yeah.”

James let himself be hugged out doors in broad daylight, closed his eyes when the boy kissed him and to his surprise it was mostly Sam he felt - and he was good with that. 

He waved from his own car as Sam pulled out onto the road and then turned the key.

It struck him right as he did.

“Jack’s kid flies planes for a living,” he said it out loud. “What are the odds of that?”


End file.
